Huntingbird Drabbles
by daisiesinajar
Summary: Huntingbird scenes fleshed out in words. Kind of.
1. S2E10, I

**S02E10, I.**

It was her fault. It was her fault that Mack was dead.

Intellectually, Bobbi knew she had no other choice, that she did the right thing. That she had tried everything in her power not to hurt Mack, taking his blows and not retaliating as much as she could have. That she had only meant to stun him, to render him unconscious, not… Not... Not kill him. But it was funny, how the mind could know one thing, but the heart believe another. She inhaled a shaky breath as she entered the garage- the place Mack had claimed as his workplace.

The place was a mess, from the complicated manoeuvres that May had done to trick Hydra into thinking they had blown up the Bus. Some part of her, a part that wasn't numb with grief for Mack, appreciated and admired the technical expertise and intelligence of the operation. Bobbi exhaled as she knelt among the items, and began sorting them out. Mack would have wanted that. He had been as neat as she was, a stickler for order and tidiness. Something, she realised with a pang, that she had rubbed off onto him.

Something flashed for a moment in the light and caught her eye. A thumbdrive. She lifted it from under a pile of boxes and tools. She recognised this thumbdrive—

"Looking for something?"

Bobbi started as Lance entered the garage. She pretended to fumble with the boxes, hiding the thumbdrive in her palm and keeping that hand hidden behind them.

Lance rolled his eyes mentally. He might not know what secrets she was keeping, but he always knew _when_ she was keeping secrets. And she was keeping one from him, right now, and not very well at that—he had caught her off-guard when he walked into the garage, and that split second deer-in-the-headlights look was as tell-tale a sign as any. But it wasn't the right time to bring it up. Not when she was hurting. He could see it in her eyes, in the downward slant of her lips, the defeated slope of her usually-defiant shoulders.

"Mack would hate to see his garage like this," Bobbi replied, gesturing at the overturned metal containers around her.

She recognised this particular thumbdrive—she had given it to Mack, after much beseeching on his part—she knew what it contained.

"I heard what happened, with Mack." Lance came to a stop in front of her. He sometimes beat about the bush when trying to say something, but when it came to certain things, important things, he always cut straight to the chase.

"Then you know it's my fault." Bobbi's voice trembled and broke. She swallowed hard, and again. She didn't want to cry; she didn't want to be vulnerable, didn't want to let her emotions overtake her. Not when there were things to be done, not when they were still on a mission. Not… Not in front of Lance.

"That's not the story going around."

He picked up a box and turned to place it on a shelf. Bobbi knew she wouldn't have time to slip it into her pocket; Lance would catch her mid-act. She would have to stall, find an opportunity. She couldn't let him find out about the thumbdrive—especially about what it contained.

"I heard it wasn't Mack that came out of that hole."

Lance wasn't sure what he could say to comfort her. There weren't enough words—and he would know, because he knew firsthand the pain and guilt of causing a friend's death. "You did what had to be done."

Bobbi cleared her throat and grabbed another box. Lance followed her movement. She was trying to find a moment to secrete the thumbdrive into her pocket, he knew, and she was hoping he hadn't noticed. What, did she think he was that blind? For a moment, all the past hurts and times she had tried to hide (and sometimes successfully hidden) things from him surfaced in his mind.

"Do you think he's dead?" he asked casually, crossing his arms. He knew it was a provoking question and that it would hit her squarely, and he hated himself for doing that to her the moment the words left his mouth. He and his _damned_ mouth! Why couldn't he learn to control his emotions and his damned tongue better?!

Bobbi stilled for a moment, and turned to face him, drawing a shaky breath.

"Between what infected him, and the hundred foot drop—" She paused for a moment, replaying the odds mentally. Anguish rolled over her like a wave. She shook her head, blinking back tears. Lance's gut twisted.

"When this is all over, imma cry for like a week," she said, trying to mask her pain with poor humour.

She tried—and failed—to smile, turned to walk away, hoping to get away from Lance before the pain overwhelmed her.

"Hey, come here."

Lance instinctively reached out and pulled her into his arms as she walked past, his palm hot against her waist through the thin cotton of her shirt. A voice in his head reproached that he shouldn't do that, that this was too intimate a gesture for "just friends", that this would only complicate things further. He ignored it and tightened his arms around her.

Bobbi hesitated, momentarily startled by his embrace. They had never been the hugging type particularly much when they were still married; as time went on and the secrets accumulated, they had put up walls and kept each other out, and hardly let each other see the other person vulnerable, much less offer comfort.

His arms tightened around her, and she tentatively wrapped hers around his neck. She had missed this, this intimacy. Sure, they had had sex. Angry sex, make-up sex, let's-not-quarrel-about-this-anymore sex, and most recently, undefined sex (although she knew it wasn't so much undefined as it was the realisation that he still loved her and she still craved his trust—she just didn't want to admit it to herself)—but hugging, hugging was more intimate in some ways than sex. They hadn't hugged in a long, long time.

She smiled to herself and curled her arms around him, settling into his embrace and into the familiarity. Lance pulled her in more closely, his body pressed tightly against hers. She could feel his heart thudding against her, steadily, just like she knew he had always been towards her. His heat warmed her from the inside out. Oh, she had missed this. It felt like nothing had changed between them, as if they were the people they were at the start of their ill-fated relationship, before the existence of secrets, before the hurts, before the fights. She ignored the voice telling her that she was slipping further into this spiral that was Lance and that it would inevitably end as it had countless times before-in disaster—and focused on the moment. She inhaled the familiar scent of detergent and shampoo and the something that was uniquely him, her grief abating momentarily. She focused on his arms around her and the warmth that spread from his palm across her back. Lance always did give the best hugs—he never held anything back. If moments could be captured…

"Mack's one of the best." Lance's breath was hot against her neck. "If he's really gone then the number of people I trust on this planet just plummeted."

Bobbi's heart gave a wrench, guilty at keeping a secret, _this _secret, from him—and Mack had known about it. She fingered the thumbdrive that was still in her hand and kept her voice steady.

"I didn't think you trusted anyone," she said wryly.

"Moment of weakness," Lance smiled, pulling away with a smile, his hands still on her waist.

"Let's just say I mistrust some less than others." He tightened his hold on her waist by a tiny fraction, and she knew, as she gazed into his honest brown eyes, that despite everything, despite claiming that he didn't trust her, that he did.

Bobbi's phone sounded in that moment, breaking the spell.

She made a split second calculation and decided it would be too risky to slip the thumbdrive into her other pocket at the same time as she answered her phone—he was right in front of her, after all—if he noticed the movement, she wanted to be as far away from him as possible to minimise the chances of him grabbing it from her.

"It's Diego," she said, moving away from him. "Coulson wanted me to set a meeting."

She slipped her hand casually into her pants pocket, sliding the thumbdrive in as she did.

"You know… I could use some backup." She tilted her chin down, half coy and half shy.

"I might know a guy. Want me to see if he's available?" Lance answered, smirking slightly.

"Is he good?" Bobbi countered, resisting the urge to smile. This semi-flirtatious back-and-forth, this she was familiar with. She had missed it. She ignored the voice that told her to _stop, stop it before you fall back in_.

"Ah," Lance gave a half-shrug, "Good enough to know you're keeping a thumbdrive from him," he said, searching her face.

Her heart skipped a beat and she dropped her gaze. Of course he would have noticed! How could she have thought he wouldn't? She searched her mind, trying to think of an excuse to give him. _Another lie,_ she thought bitterly.

"I want to trust you Bob, I really do." Lance gazed steadily at her. "So I'm going to assume that whatever's on that drive has got nothing to do with you and me."

Bobbi met his gaze. His eyes were bright and clear, without a trace of doubt or suspicion—he was being honest.

He held her gaze for another moment. "I'll go get my weapons and we can go." He headed up the stairs, stealing one last glance at her back.

Bobbi swallowed as he left, feeling torn. She was relieved and grateful that he had let it go and didn't press her, because she didn't know what to say and didn't think she would have been able to come up with a decent cover. And yet, she felt guilty: not too long ago she had told him that she had always been honest with him. It wasn't a lie— he had never asked about this particular secret—but it wasn't the truth either. That's how it had been with them, half-truths and not-quite-lies, and it had destroyed their marriage. He had known about her tendency to give only half-truths ("half-lies", he used to call them) when she said she had always been honest with him, but now, here was actual proof that she was keeping something from him. Somehow, being called out on her half-lie, having it laid out bare, made the guilt that much harder to bear.

She marvelled though, at how much he had matured since the divorce—in the past he would have demanded to know what she was hiding from him and assumed that it was something personal, something that affected their relationship. (Of course, it never was; all her secrets had to do with classified mission intel that would have put him in danger, not that she could have shared them with him anyway.) She knew about his deep-seated insecurities and issues with trust, and the fact that he was choosing to trust her instead of giving into his insecurities made her heart wrench. Here he was, trying, trying to make it—them—work, and she was essentially throwing it back in his face. How ironic that when he finally chose to trust her, when he finally chose to believe that this secret did not involve them personally, that it actually _did._

But she couldn't let him know what was really on the thumbdrive: pictures of a chubby toddler with familiar brown eyes and a charming smile that he had inherited from his father—pictures that she had given Mack because he had insisted they were part of his rights as a godfather.

* * *

**A/N: **Huntingbird is my favourite ship!

I've always felt that there's just so much tension and so much left unspoken in Bobbi's and Hunter's interactions, and these stay with me long after I've finished watching the episodes, so I've tried (and will try) to put them into words.

These drabbles are based on the assumption that 'the other thing' that Bobbi is hiding from Hunter is their child. But I were to be _really _honest... I don't think that's likely to be the case :( still, it's pretty fun to write. So I hope you enjoy reading these as much as I do writing them. :)


	2. S02E22

**S02E22**

He twists the rusted doorknob slowly, blood pounding in his ears, not knowing what to expect. It's her blood on the ground, on the walls, on the door– deep down he knows it is, but that doesn't stop him from hoping it's not.

He pushes open the door quickly, gun at the ready, but the first thing he sees is her, barely conscious, face mangled, chained to a chair. Before he can register anything else or take another step, she leans all her weight to her left and a shot rings out. Something warm splatters across his face.

-o-

It's Lance, she knows it is; he hasn't failed her once yet. Her heart is in her throat and she screams a warning completely muffled by the filthy gag. Too late– the door pushes open– she pulls hard against the chains holding down her chair, straining and stretching her body as far as she can, teetering on the chair's two left legs. _Please let this be enough_, she thinks, as a shot echoes off the concrete walls. She jolts with the impact, chair falling back on all fours. The fiery pain in her chest spreads, and it feels like flames are licking, burning her up from the inside.

Fumbling hands are undoing her ties, pulling her close, her name on his lips like a prayer. _Hunter– Lance_. His familiar scent surrounds her for a moment, a comfort deeper than she could express in words, and she wants to reach out to touch him, _tell_ him, but her hands don't seem to be working. Her lungs feel like they've caught on fire, and she can't catch her breath; her mind grows fuzzy from the pain and lack of oxygen, and _oh it hurts, it hurts_. He lays her down with gentle hands, the cool concrete doing nothing for the flames on the inside, and desperate hands cup her face. "Stay with me Bob," he pleads urgently, voice cracking, thumbs rubbing and smearing blood across her cheeks. "Please, _please_."

He hasn't spoken to her since their ultimatum; she's missed his voice– missed _him_– so much. "I've got you, I've got you," his voice trembles with anguish. She writhes in agony, body spasming against the pain curling and spreading within her. She can feel his hands shaking where he's holding her, and she has to force her eyes to stay open. It's getting harder and harder to breathe, and each breath is increasingly shallow. She forces her eyes to stay open, memorising his face. "_Please_, Bobbi–"

His hands are warm and sticky with her blood as he smoothes her hair desperately, fingers snagging tangles. His hands cup her neck and move to her cheek, thumbs pressed against her cheeks despairingly. Her voice catches in her throat when she tries to speak- she can't pull enough air into her lungs. Darkness encroach on the edges of her vision, and he's fading quickly into black. _He's always worn his heart on his sleeve,_ she'd once told Mack. _I don't know how to do that._

So she gazes into his eyes with what energy she has, hoping he can somehow hear all the things she should have told him but never did round to; praying he would see and understand all the emotions that fill her heart to bursting that she wouldn't have words for even if she could speak.

_I love you, and I'm sorry, and I love you._

* * *

**A/n:**

Her expression broke my heart.

Loved all the lancebob, and individual lance and bob scenes this finale. :'(


	3. S02E15

**S02E15**

"Copy that Sir. I'm on my way."

It's not like she could have said anything else. Not to the director of the organisation she had dedicated her life to. Not in the middle of the largest invasion they'd ever faced. Not while people she'd known for years were suddenly pointing guns in her friends' faces.

Her friends. How could she have missed it? How could she not have known? She'd worked under them, alongside them, even guided some along, for years. But this isn't the time to second guess her judgment, because if she gets started, everything will fall apart like a house of cards, and foremost among them would be Hunter.

_God, Hunter._ She swings a leg across the cradle of her bike and revs the engine, speeding off at a steep curve. She weaves in and out of traffic, gritting her teeth and trying to focus. _Concentrate, Morse_. He would never forgive her- not that it would matter; after today, there wouldn't be anything left of her to forgive. She swallows as she speeds past one red light after another, horns blaring from all sides in her ears.

Her phone rings and she risks a glance downward- it's him. She tightens her grip on the handles, letting it ring on, her throat constricting as she blinks back tears. She can't afford to pick up his call, no matter how much she wants to hear his voice, to speak to him- she tries, but she can't quite stop the one last time that plays in her head like a broken record. But pick up the call and she would probably get herself killed on the road, or worse- her resolve might give way completely and she might go straight home to him, mission be damned, friends be-

No, she can't. She can't be selfish.

_"You have, one, new voice message."_

She gulps and plays it back before she can stop herself, hoping her focus on trying not to get hit by vehicles will mitigate the pain. It doesn't.

"Hey sweetheart," his voice sounds cheerfully in her ears, and her heart clenches. "Look, I know you're busy right now, but I made your favourite chicken. This time I swear it's not burnt or raw or anything, I had Mum talk me through the whole thing- Anyway. I'll wait up and warm it up for us when you're back yeah? I'll see you tonight love, don't die out there."

She chokes back a sob. _I'm so sorry._

By the time she skids to a stop at the pier where Mack is waiting with a speedboat (four minutes after the order and at the other end of the city), she's schooled her face into a mask of nonchalance.

"Mack."

"Bobbi." He turns to start the engine, but stops and studies her face carefully at the last minute. "Are you-"

Bobbi gives a violent jerk of her head, _Not now,_ and he nods. She gazes at the white foam behind them as they speed toward the ship, looking for all the world like she was watching out for tails (she was), and resisting the urge to call Hunter. She had no reason not to, the ship was another fifteen minutes out even going at the speed they were, but if she's honest with herself...

She wouldn't know what to say. What would she say, what _could _she say to the person she loved most when going on a suicide mission? Apologise for the chicken? If she were honest with herself and dug a little deeper, she knows what she has to apologise for: for choosing SHIELD over them. Loyalty to them over loyalty to him. For willing to die for SHIELD and not willing to live for him. She doesn't know how to explain how the lives of many outweighed the life of one- and definitely far, _far _outweighed her own. She doesn't know how to explain that love felt selfish and loyalty felt selfless and even though she knew doing the selfless thing was being selfish to him, she just _had _to, it was more than about just her.

And she knows Hunter, knows he would yell, he would beg, he would commandeer a plane or grow wings to fly here and try to stop her. Whatever it took for her to come home safely with him, or if it came to it, to just be safe. Bob, _please_, he would say. _Walk away_. Walk away, _please_. The last time he'd asked her and she refused, she'd wound up with three bullets and a coma. She doesn't know if she has the strength to say no to him this time, the strength to say goodbye.

Bobbi was nothing if not realistic, and testing her resolve when she knew it might break was not. So she steels herself, and her phone disappears with a soft plop into the water, buried beneath the white foam in the wake of the speeding boat.

-o-

Every shot she takes is one shot closer to death. She's acutely aware of that. It's strange how she can be entirely focused on the mission, on each target, on each bullet; and yet feel so detached, as if she's floating and watching it all unravel below her.

"I love your whole thing, you know that?" Her lips quirk up at a corner as she watches Izzy shove a gun into her back pocket, taking in every move, every grimace. She's never been good at goodbyes. How did you say goodbye to someone who'd saved your life countless times over?

She rattles off her plan to get Gonzales off the ship, makes sure Izzy nods, and then- It's now or never; her last chance to say goodbye to Hunter, her last chance to let him know that he was on her mind, right till the end; her last chance to say _I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry._

"And um," she swallows, niggling her fingers up her tight-fitting sleeve to pull out the keyring that cost so little and meant so much. She feels the metal scrape against her skin, and it's been pressed against her skin long enough that it would leave an imprint on her flesh, against her pulse- the closest she could get to tattooing him on her heart.

She holds the keyring out to Izzy, throat tight, willing her lip not to tremble and tears not to fall. "Could you give this to Hunter?" Her voice is softer than she'd like, belying a vulnerability she seldom let show, but this was _Izzy_. Her voice almost cracks on his name.

Izzy searches her eyes. "Bobbi," she says softly, and Bobbi hears the tinge of anger veined through her name. She waits a beat, and watches Izzy's eyes harden as she realises what she intends to do. She was always sharp like that.

Her best friend swipes the keyring out of her hands, eyes darting down only for a split second before glaring at her. "He's gonna be pissed, you know that?" _'And so am I'_ is left unspoken.

Under different circumstances, she might've laughed; Izzy was as bad as she was at saying goodbyes. It was one of the things they'd bonded over: their love of a good fight, their intolerance for all things mushy, and their inability to say their goodbyes. They'd gone for their friends' funerals together, standing solemnly at the back, two feet apart, far enough for each other to grieve and close enough to be a rock. Now she was making Izzy go for hers, alone. _You'll have Hunter_, she thinks, but deep down she knows he would never go for her funeral, would never believe she was well and truly dead. _Oh, Lance_.

"Yeah," she forces out, giving a jerky nod and clenching her fist against the tears. _I'm sorry_, she communicates silently to Izzy, and she almost smiles when the brunette brushes past her shaking her head. _Goodbye Iz._

It was funny, the way moments went by. She could have said goodbye to Hunter that morning. She could have lingered in bed, his arm strewn carelessly over her waist, her head pillowed on his chest, their legs tangled together beneath the covers; could have listened to his heart beat under her ear and let his breath tickle her cheek. She could have woken him up, slowly, and watched the smile spread over his features like it always did when he woke and she was still there. She could have made love to him, memorised the way he felt in her, hoarded up the memory of how he held her, maybe told him not to die out there even though they were both in bed.

All she has instead is the voicemail from him playing on loop in her head, and she's lucky she has that, she reminds herself. She swallows once, twice; looks up at the ceiling and blinks away the burn of tears. Yeah, lucky.

Her lips twist in a bitter smile and she returns to reality, this one last thing she would do before expiring.

All the while his voice, his laugh, is in her head.

_Hey sweetheart. I'll see you tonight love, don't die out there._

Oh Lance. I am so, so, sorry.

* * *

**A/n:**

The scene where Bobbi hands Izzy the Franny's Saloon keyring.

Slightly AoS non-compliant since Mack was on the ship all along I think. Requested a long time ago by Caitlin.

Wrote this because I saw a gif of Bobbi's expression the other day and it broke (breaks) my heart.

Sorry for the lack of updates, I started work, and I _do_ have a number of fics in progress/ are half-written.  
And apologies if this was somewhat rusty..! :(


	4. S03E03, E04

**It's Not A Lie**

Hunter barges into the washroom, shoulder first, and the sight of him all beaten and bruised is enough to scare the other men out in seconds. He makes sure every last person is gone, before locking the door and stumbling over to the sink, leaning his weight on shaky arms.

For a long moment, he doesn't do anything, just stares into the bottom of the porcelain, white stained with dirt and grime accumulated over years. A trembling hand reaches to turn on the tap, and the basin soon fills with water, the tap gushing faster than the clogged pipes can drain. A drop of blood splats onto the swirling surface, turning the clear water pink momentarily.

And then it's gone.

Gone, like the life he'd just snuffed out.

He wasn't the first person he'd killed, no, not by a long shot. But this was different. In the past, he'd taken out people who were threats. People, _bad_ people, who were trying to kill him, or his friends, or other innocents. He had been doing his _duty. _

But this?

The man was a psychopath who murdered people and enjoyed it. That constituted a threat, according to May, and he agreed. Thing was, he wasn't being a threat to someone's life _right_ at that moment; Hunter hadn't _needed_ to kill him. The fact that this was accidental doesn't make a difference. No one had ordered him to hunt down Ward. Nobody had told him to get in with Hydra. Not this way. In fact, May had explicitly disapproved of his methods.

But he had gone ahead anyway. This was on him. This death, _his_ death, was on him.

Killing someone whose name you knew, whose beer you'd guzzled, and whose car you'd slept in, was a lot different from killing someone you only recognised from a file. Killing someone whom you'd once trusted to have your back, even if cautiously, was not quite the same as shooting someone you knew from the get-go was the enemy. Even if he _was_ a crazy SOB.

Hunter splashes water onto his face, open wounds and cuts on his knuckles and face stinging upon contact. Pain was good- he deserved pain. He deserved _something, _at least, for what he had done. He turns the water up full blast and forces the cuts directly under it, relishing the burn and sting.

May hadn't said much, beyond saying he shouldn't blame himself. She hadn't needed to. What could she possibly say? That it wasn't his fault? That this was necessary? Both lies. And honestly, that look in her eyes when they'd both realised that he'd killed a former associate was more than he cares to know about her opinion on the matter: up until that point, even _he_ hadn't known how far he would go for vengeance against Ward.

It was funny how you could cross some lines without realising and look back only to find you're in deeper than you'd thought.

There was no going back, now.

He finally musters the courage to look in the mirror, and for a split second, he thinks he sees the dead man standing behind him, lips formed in a silent _why_, and his knees almost give out. Hunter forces his eyes back on his own reflection. The fluorescent lights overhead cast harsh shadows on his face, making him appear more haggard and beaten up than he feels he is. Eyes that are bruised nearly shut, a rapidly swelling cheek pulling at a split lip, and he thinks his jaw might be fractured- but he's _alive, _which is more than he can say for-

"Hunter."

May's muffled voice sounds through the door, but there is no urgency in her voice, only concern. No imminent threat, then. His eyes squeeze shut, hands clenching either side of the sink, and he ignores her. Mercifully, she leaves him alone- he doesn't need pity. He doesn't deserve pity. He deserves… He doesn't know what he deserves.

Something buzzes against his side. He ignores it at first, thinking it was May again, but she wouldn't knock on the door _and_ call him- it wasn't her style. He pulls out the burner from his pocket, an unfamiliar number blinking insistently on the screen. He hadn't saved any numbers on it, of course, but instinctively, he knows it's Bobbi.

He swallows and looks down, phone clutched in one hand as his shoulders shake violently for a moment. If he doesn't pick up, she'll know something is wrong, and come looking for him, come looking for _Ward-_ He wonders briefly what she would think of him if she'd known that he'd killed someone he considered almost a friend, just to get in with Hydra, before he takes a shuddering breath and answers.

"Bobbi?"

"Hunter."

She doesn't ask how he knows it's her; it's the same way she just knows it's him when he calls. She sounds tired, frustrated, bored.

He would do a lot- anything, it turns out- to keep her that way. Bored- but safe, and alive.

"What's up?" he asks cheerily, throat working to keep the tremor out of his voice. He wonders if May had called her and told her.

"Nothing, just…" She sighs in frustration, and he hears the sound of something hitting rubber. _Punching bag, _he thinks, almost smiling, flashing back to a long time ago when he'd found a crinkled picture of himself stuck to the bag.

"I'm sick of being cooped up here. What's up with you, what's happening your end?"

He swallows his sigh of relief- May hadn't told her..

"Nothing," he feigns annoyance. "Got on that train I told you about, but it's only gotten me halfway- think I'll have to buy another ticket to reach my destination."

It's not technically a lie- he just wasn't telling her what had happened on this journey to the 'halfway'. His knees can't hold him any longer, and he slides down against the wall, resting his forehead against grimy jeans. Everything hurts, and it feels good, this punishment, but he also wishes he was there with her and they could pretend this was all over.

"This bloke is more trouble than I'd realised," he continues, complaining about Ward. "I'm all tuckered out. When I'm back, I'm gonna need a good lovin'." He pauses for effect, and the thought of her rolling her eyes makes the darkness lift just a little. "Y'think Mack will go for a cuddle?"

She mutters something about him being an ass, and the annoyed affection and familiarity make his heart clench. A little more information on what's happening at the base, nothing that could be tied to its location or reveal any classified intel, before she sighs.

"I wish I was there with you."

She says this every time she calls, and every time, he says a silent prayer in thanks that she isn't.

"I know love. But you've got to get better first, 'hab your knee all good and proper before you come out here, and make me look bad again."

"I can make you look bad right now Hunter, don't need my knee to use my batons."

The bitterness is evident through her lighthearted tone; he knows she hasn't trained with them since Ward, and the burning desire for revenge wells up in him again. Before he can say something to comfort her, she cuts in, perhaps knowing what he was going to say and not wanting to hear it.

"Listen, I have to go- I'm going to check on Simmons. Keep me updated, alright?"

"On how May's glares have upped a notch? Sure thing love."

"You know what I mean Hunter." She hesitates, and her voice softens. "Don't die out there."

* * *

**If She Knows It's A Lie**

She used to only get winded after ten miles at twice this pace, and now she can't even manage five before her knee and lungs start to protest. Bobbi hits the stop button and the machine slows; chest heaving, she nearly stumbles at the sudden change of pace, and resists the urge to curse and swear and punch a hole in this machine too.

The last thing she needs is for her hands to get injured, or worse- for Coulson to think she isn't mentally and emotionally fit for duty.

Not that he deems her fit for anything other than lab assistant now; and if Fitz's frustrated huffs are anything to go by, she isn't doing much of a job at that either, two PhDs notwithstanding. She doesn't blame him, not really; he misses his partner.

The barely-five-mile run doesn't do much to alleviate the unease squirming in her gut like a snake waiting to strike. If anything, the moment she stops, it rears its head again.

Something's wrong, something to do with Hunter- she _knows _it. She's felt this uneasiness and anxiety before, several times actually, and each time her gut had been right. First time round, she had stumbled onto Hunter in an alley after searching for him all night, knocked out in a vicious bar brawl. He'd broken a wrist. Second time, he'd been knifed- she still doesn't know the specifics of that, he'd refused to say. There had been a couple more times in between, while they'd been married, but the last time she'd felt this squirming in her stomach, he'd been in a car crash- the crash which had killed her best friend.

So far, her gut has never steered her wrong where Hunter's concerned, and it's taking every ounce of her self-control not to barge into Coulson's office to somehow determine Hunter's location and rush down to him. He's alive and alright, at least as of the previous night, and she believes him- unless she's failing at her ability to detect lies too, like she's been failing at every other aspect so far. A voice in her head chides her self-reproach, _you're being too hard on yourself, unrealistically so, _and she tries to cling to that the best she can, pushing away her doubt and frustration.

No, Hunter wouldn't lie to her. Not anymore. Not after what they'd been through- he wouldn't throw them right back into that cycle of lies and mistrust.

-o-

She enters the garage feeling a lot more relaxed, a hot post-run shower having washed away most of the unease. She's wondering vaguely if Mack and Daisy have returned when she spots Coulson. He's standing in front of the Quinjet looking over something with Fitz, and men geared up in full tactical suits are carrying machinery up the ramp.

Bobbi's shoulders tense up, the disquiet in her stomach flaring all over again, along with an ominous feeling that feels an awful lot like betrayal. She takes a step forward, and Coulson looks up- he meets her eye for a split second before pursing his lips and turning away abruptly, heading up the ramp without a second word or glance.

_Useless. _The word comes to mind and plays on loop before she can stop it, and it stings_. _Is she not worth even back-end support now that she's stuck out of commission? Or does he not trust her to obey orders to the extent that he won't even keep her updated on missions?

She forces her fists to unclench, but the tension bites at her shoulders. She stops Fitz as he walks by her to leave the garage. It takes some measure of effort to keep her tone neutral, but she's not very successful.

"Coulson's leaving with a tac team?"

"Yeah," he mumbles distractedly, "May and Hunter have a lead on Ward, seems like a dodgy situa…" He trails off, realising that- "They didn't tell you?"

She doesn't have to reply for him to know the answer; she wouldn't have asked otherwise.

Anger and betrayal and a pervasive sense of complete inadequacy hit her like a gut punch as the implications of this hit her, and for the briefest moment she can't catch her breath. Coulson had kept this from her. _Hunter_ had lied to her. _Useless. _

She allows herself to feel the anger first. Anger at Coulson for keeping this from her- the last she'd checked, she was still part of SHIELD, still part of team- one of the _best, damn it._ Was she that fragile after her ordeal that she had to treated with kid gloves and protected from any and all dangerous information? She _deserved_ to know! Did he, did _they_, think so poorly of her self-control that they would keep this from her for fear she wouldn't be able to resist going after Ward too? Did all her previous work count for nothing?!

The voice in her head reproaches her again. _Your judgment has always been somewhat faulty when it comes to Hunter. Look what happened the last time. Can't blame them for wanting to keep you safe- he might've even told them to keep it from you._

Hunter. There was another can of worms- anger was easier to feel than the betrayal that crept like a slow ache through her veins. She knows it's not just vengeance he wants; he wants to keep her safe. And she appreciates it, relishes the feeling of being loved, and understands his desire to want to protect her. But she wasn't a child, she wasn't fragile. No matter what he and the rest of the team thought, she was the Mockingbird- injury or not.

She pushes away the fear and doubt that has been niggling and eating away at her like a degenerative disease since her rehab had started- the _what ifs_, the cold detached observations she'd made when she couldn't move as quickly, couldn't move as far, couldn't even crouch all the way down; the signs that pointed to the fact- no, the _possibility_\- that she might never be who she once was again.

Bobbi strides back to her bunk after extracting the coordinates from Fitz, pushing away her guilt at forcing it out of him and throwing last essentials in a bag she'd had packed for weeks. The base had many exits, she'd mapped them all when she was working for Gonzales. They were all well-protected now, of course, but with all the hubbub going on, hopefully it would take a while for someone to realise she was missing and to check the feeds. Though, really, she thinks Coulson already knows what she's up to.

As she revs her bike and speeds off, visor down against the glaring sunlight, she finally lets herself feel the frustration directed toward herself. Anger at her inability to tell when her own ex was lying, something she never had a problem with before. Betrayal by her own body and its failure to recover quickly. And last and best of all, the knowledge that Hunter and Coulson might be right in wanting to keep her out of it- she was too close to see the picture clearly. The perfect cherry on top.

Just. Perfect.

* * *

**A/n:**

Episode tag for 3x03 (It's Not A Lie) and for 3x04 (If She Knows It's A Lie).

Hi! I haven't dropped off the face of the earth- yet. And to those who've asked, yes, I'm definitely still writing huntingbird! Just that I've started working and am mostly planning more chapters of Things You Said (and not actually _writing_ it... *twiddles thumbs*), so... short fics will take a while. Do send in prompts though, I'll do my best to fill them!

In the meantime I hope you enjoy this.


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